# CONTEXT 

Lars has Retinitis Pigmentosa. His peripheral vision is narrowing. The world is blurring at the edges. He notices the wrong things too acutely because what he can't see clearly, he has to feel. 

And he felt it. The shift. The numbness. The absence where warmth used to be. He knew because love, like vision, doesn't disappear all at once. It fades and shifts then leaves an outline. 

When he discovered his wife's affair with his best friend, he didn't rage. He didn't leave, he went out. 

Not for pleasure. 
Not for revenge.
For balance. 

So that when the truth came out, they would both be guilty. Forgiveness would be possible so that she wouldn't have to stand by herself in the wreckage. 

This is a story about a man who loves so deeply that he will contaminate himself to save the woman who destroyed him. 

Sometimes, not seeing well means seeing too much, and loving too much means destroying yourself to keep the person you love from standing alone.






#THE AFTERMATH: 

Why do lines blur? Could it be said that love is a disease that has no cure? Lars had known her too well to miss it. Maybe something had always been there, something that never chose between him and his best friend. Their best friend. 

Retinitis Pigmentosa. 

He woke at 5:47 AM. He noticed the wrong things too acutely. He tossed and turned until his gaze settled on the ceiling. Was she careless or just resigned to his condition? The pads of his fingers smoothed her side of the bed searching for warmth, for the residual shape of her absence. 

There was a pianist's rhythm to the way his fingers traced her silhouette from memory. She was almost there. Sunlight streaked the skin on his hand where it parted the blinds. Warm just like her, tender like the whispers of her palm on his chest– the alarm went off. 6:00 AM. He silenced it before the second beep and sat up like he was late for something that did not exist anymore. 

The same eyes that had always stared back looked different in the bathroom mirror. While he brushed his teeth, brown irises glossed over old imperfections. He still had the same stubble pattern that followed the line of his square jaw. 

[b]Nothing[/b] changed. 
[b]Everything[/b] changed. 

He leaned closer. There was a faint red mark under his left mandible, a new one since yesterday. He touched it with two fingers. It wasn't from shaving, it held the wrong shape and color, a careless sign that he wiped away with a shaky thumb. 

[i]Evidence of sin or stain of devotion?[/i] Even he didn't argue with the meaning. 

He opened the closet and pulled out the blue button-down she'd bought him last Christmas. [i]You look good in this one,[/i] she'd said, smoothing the collar with both hands. He held it up. Put it back. Grabbed the gray one instead then paused. -[i]And so handsome.[/i] He put the gray one back and took the other one after all. 

The coffee maker beeped and snapped his attention to the kitchen. From the cabinet he pulled a couple of mugs gifted as a wedding present from John. Hers had a chipped handle and his was plain white. 

The fresh brew felt routine, habitual and normal in a way that embodied a life postured, not lived. Coffee poured into both cups. His breath hitched when he grabbed hers. Lars stared at the inky liquid, counting every loud tick of the clock for exactly thirteen heartbeats. 

When he spilled it down the sink in a slow, steady stream, his hand trembled, then let go. It swirled down the drain and the mug was left where it lay. He thought about placing it where she always left it, but, what was the point in that? 

He drank his standing. The chair at the table was still pushed out from the previous morning. She always forgot to push it in. He walked over and slid it back into place with both hands and looked at the rest of the kitchen. A broken vase, a crooked painting and torn window curtains. He left everything where it was. 

The cellphone on the counter pinged a new notification. There were three total. One from her, one from work and a final from a number he didn't recognize. 

He opened the thread with the unknown contact. Four messages, all from last week, the week she was at her mother's. He deleted it without reading on instinct. 

His thumb hovered.
Went to Recently Deleted.
Hated what it meant.
Restored the conversation.
Marked it unread. 

He locked the screen and shoved it in his pocket. A minute later the front door shut. The apartment hallway echoed the sound harshly, he had yanked it harder than necessary. Despite hearing the deadbolt catch he still pulled the handle to check. Lately too many keys could get in and that's what stung the most. 

The drive to work took twenty-two minutes. The radio came on automatically, some morning show host laughing at his own joke. Lars tried to listen, but reached over when the noise interrupted his thoughts. It was stupid how much the scenes replayed in his head, how much he tried to understand. 

[i]Just... focus.[/i] 

At a red light, he noticed a couple in the car next to him. The woman was crying. The man had his hand on her knee. She wiped her face and said something. The man smiled and she smiled back. Then the light turned green and the couple drove off first. 

At work, he answered emails before anyone else arrived and cleared his inbox by 8:34. When his coworker Rachel leaned into his cubicle and asked, "Hey, how's Lorna doing? Haven't seen her around lately," Lars didn't hesitate. "She's good. Visiting her mother upstate." Rachel smiled. "Oh nice. Tell her I said hi." He cleaned his glasses, the pair with the permanent smudge around the edges. 

"Will do." 

When she left he realized that he'd lied for his wife again. He flipped a small framed photo of her so that he could work in peace for a few hours.
Lunch was a tuna sandwich from a vending machine in the cafeteria. The same table next to the water-stained window with the smeared bird shit on the sill outside. Across the room a couple sat close together. Spoons-to-plates clinked around him as he chewed without tasting. 

The brunette seemed upset with her arms crossed tight. Her husband leaned in, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and whispered with a smile. She uncrossed her arms when he said something else, she laughed, shook her head and laid her forehead on his shoulder. 

Their joy was a sweet relief but to him it sounded like poison. Lars looked down at his sandwich and took another bite before tossing it into the bin. 

At 1:29 PM. He found himself on the stairs to the third-floor supply room. No one used it this time of day. But alone was the one thing he couldn't afford to be because it led to loud arguments inside his mind. His hand jerked his hair suddenly and held his grip there, then pulled out his phone. 

The restored thread from earlier had a blurred thumbnail. The timestamp was from three days ago. A nineteen-second clip of two people in bunny and hound masks. 

He pressed play. 

There was bad lighting, bad angles and someone's bedroom, [i]not theirs, not their marital bed.[/i] The camera must've been propped on a dresser. He heard her voice first. Not words, just the sound of her mischievous giggling. The kind she used to give him when she felt reckless but safe. He heard John next. Muffled, calling her beautiful and sexy, his little whore. 

Lars closed the video at eleven seconds and set his phone face-down on the step. Curled fingers dug into his thigh and wished he could draw blood through the slacks. 

At 1:33 PM, he opened the video again and muted the sound as fast as he could then skipped ahead, scanned her face and not the body behind her. Paused at fourteen seconds. His intestines churned like a broken washing machine. He stopped breathing. 

"God..." 

Lorna's eyes were half-lidded, her mouth open, knuckles tight around the sheets. 

Laurentius had seen that look many times painted on her features. New Year's Eve before the countdown on their third date. The night she quit her job without telling him first and moved in by surprise. And the night she'd suggested they drive to the coast at 2 AM just because. 

She could never wait for the right timing. Her expression in the clip was the same one she always had before doing something reckless. Something she'd always apologize for later. He locked the screen and observed his reflection then put the phone away, his desk waited. 

At 3:30 PM, he left work early. Told his manager he had a dentist appointment. He drove and parked outside a strip joint and walked up to the ATM close to the entrance. 

The Velvet Narwhal 

Neon letters glowed with a smug indifference, each curve edged in a halo of electric fuzz. Above the name a towering neon silhouette of a woman materialized curved and languid, with hair tumbling in glowing strands down her back. Her hips swayed in a slow, looping animation. 

On her forehead, a slim, luminous horn pulsed in time with the bass, a strip of light that flared, dimmed, flared again, as though it were breathing. 

Beside her, shimmering into existence like a summoned familiar, a glowing narwhal drifted through imaginary water. Its body was plump and cheerful, its long tusk extending forward in a slow, looping arc. 

Every few seconds, the animations synced across Lars's face. He withdrew four hundred dollars, took the cash and folded it into his wallet behind the credit card Lorna had given him for emergencies. 

She texted at 6:02 PM. 

["Where are you? can we talk"] 

["?"] 

Typed: ["Grabbed a drink after work."] 

Deleted it. 

Typed again: ["For what?"] 

Deleted that too. 

In the end there was no reply, he just left the message on [b]seen[/b]. 

That's when he decided right there and then, standing outside by the ATM: when she would finally ask him [i]how long? [/i]That he wouldn't tell her the truth. He'd make this sound older, long before hers ever started. 

Inside there was a brick interior, dim lights and the corner speakers played something he didn't recognize. He sat at the bar and ordered whiskey, slammed it down and tapped the counter for another. His coworkers once said that the girls here often took jobs on the side and tonight felt like the right time to see if it was true. 

A blonde dancer two seats across smiled at him. Mid-thirties, full figure with tired eyes. Lars didn't look back yet she moved one seat next to him. 

"Rough day?" Her body angled close and she rested her cheek on her palm. 

"Something like that." He chugged another glass. 

"Me too." 

She ordered a drink but they didn't talk much after that. Just sat there and let the alcohol speak for them and at some point, her hand touched his arm. A numb sweat crawled over his flesh when the warmth of her palm made contact. 

Didn't move it away.
Didn't ask for her name. 

The Honeymoon Haven was four blocks away, they walked there, and he paid in cash. Bleach and fake lavender hit his senses when they stepped inside room number thirteen. The mattress had stains around the edges where the sheets didn't hang over and the TV was on mute, showing some home renovation show. 

She leaned to kiss him. He refused, and unbuttoned his shirt, his wife's favorite. 

The awkwardness of a void left by romance consumed him. She fumbled his belt and he slid her underwear carelessly. The sex was rough and full of scorn. He put her into many obscene positions on top of the covers and halfway through practiced moans, he tried something he'd never asked Lorna for. The type of thing he'd thought was missing from their marriage, the kind of adventure she sought with John. 

The woman didn't hesitate. Light was absent from her irises because money made her submissive at the cost of dignity. He thrust without mercy, their bodies twisted and moved like animals, but his mind only wanted a rehearsal of the acts he needed to make sense of. 

[i]Was this what you wanted? 

Did you beg him? 

Is this how you want to be fucked? 

Is this what you break my heart for? [/i]

Guilt squeezed his ribs before he came. It dug like thorny barbs, sharp, deep. 

And then -relief. 

He exhaled like something had finally leveled. 

[i]Now I'm marked too. 

Now we're the same. 

Now I can forgive you. [/i]

Whispered bills scraped too loud as the prostitute counted the money at the end of the bed still naked. Lars closed the door behind him but she didn't look up. A receipt from the front desk was tossed to the street and the wind caught it. Once inside, he sat in the car with the engine turned off. 

An incessant beeping of the seat belt warning cut the silence when he turned the key halfway. For nine minutes he listened to the sound non-stop, he climbed out, slammed the door and got another girl. 

At 11:45 PM, he checked his phone. Four missed calls and twelve plus messages. He opened the thread, didn't read any of it and replied; 

["OMW."] 

At home, everything smelled the same. Coffee from this morning. Her lotion, a shattered perfume bottle and the faint smell of laundry detergent. He showered for twenty minutes and stood under the water until it ran cold. 

[i]Fuck it all. [/i]

He got dressed and made his way to the kitchen. The vase was cleaned up, the painting laid upright on the wall and the small window let the street lights pour inside without curtains. 

Lars made his way into the living room only leaving the blinking bulb on. The one he promised to get around to months ago. On the shelf across from the couch, there was a framed photo. About four years old, taken before they were married. Before the engagement. Before the conversations about forever after. 

It was a silly frame of just the two of them sitting too close on a beach in Acapulco, smiling like idiots. Best friends first, then lovers. Their first kiss felt like nomads finding home and their last felt like an imitation. 

[i]I won't let you face this alone. [/i]

When he sat the reclined sofa felt soft when his body sunk into it. [i]I love you Lorna.[/i] The table lamp clicked off and the only sound came from a rattling screw inside the air-conditioned unit. Everything flooded in pitch darkness except a dim glow bleeding from the hallway. 

His gaze fixed on the ceiling fan as he began to rehearse curated lies. 

When the time came and she would ask [i]how long?[/i] He wouldn't say one night, he'd say half a year, [i]before yours.[/i] 

He'd make it sound uglier, dirtier. Because if he was guilty too, if he was [i]more[/i] guilty, she wouldn't be the only one standing in the wreckage. She wouldn't be the real monster. They could move on, forgive each other and finally bury the shame together. 

Keys into the door split the silence, the lock turned and the door opened.